


Mutant Girls Stick Together

by Sub_Rosa



Category: Heaven Will Be Mine, We Know the Devil (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Decisions, Crack, Crack Relationships, F/F, Gen, Pre-HWBM-Canon, Timeline What Timeline, Yellow Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 12:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15485307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sub_Rosa/pseuds/Sub_Rosa
Summary: The ship-self String of Pearls is far from the first pretty thing Saturn ever took from Celestial Mechanics.





	Mutant Girls Stick Together

There wasn’t really a concept of ‘night’ and ‘day’ in space, beyond the ground.

Clocks were nominally synchronized to the Earth, but the geometry of space-time perfectly exposed this break in the consistency of Culture; one person’s daylight was another person’s midnight. In space, only another person could stop you from choosing your bedtime, and of course, Saturn would never let anyone tell her when to go to bed.

Saturn woke up to the sound of the bay airlock, while most of her peers were halfway into their own waking hours. The massive titanium doors were so noisy that you could hear them rumbling dimly, even from the other side of the Celestial Mechanics station.

Something else was _also_ so noisy that Saturn could hear it from the other side of the station. She was exactly the kind of bitch who slept in her clothes, so she just shrugged on her jacket again and made her way out of her bunks, creeping through a back corridor to get to the hangar.

The hangar was already occupied when Saturn got there. She crouched behind some railing and peeked over the top -- just in case this was supposed to be one of those secret incidents that everyone knew about, and everyone knew everyone knew about, but people kept quiet about anyways because no-one wanted to blink first.

The occupants of the hanger were two active ship-selves; piloted by Terra-Ignota and Cydonia, if Saturn remembered correctly. Cydonia’s ship-self was tightly clutching a particularly bright bit of space debris… and the ‘space debris’ was yelling at the top of her lungs.

“Ghrk-! Just who do you think you’re dealing with? I am! The Devil herself!”

Saturn’s jaw dropped, and she hammered at her wireless headset, trying to listen in on the appropriate channels, but she didn’t need to bother. Terra-Ignota knelt down in her enamel mecha, poking at Cydonia’s prisoner and speaking through her external speakers. “That’s not how eversion works, dork.”

“I am not a dork! I am Lucifer! The morning star! Pure unsubstantiated light!”

“‘Unsubstantiated’-?” Cydonia echoed. “That’s not a good thing! That’s not even esoteric! It’s epistemic!”

The wanna-be rebellious angel was hanging upside down in Cydonia’s fists. Her long hair hung limp in the air, and even in the distinctly low artificial gravity of the local Tidal Reactor, something like blood pooled in her head. “I don’t care! Let go of me!”

“No.”

“I didn’t run away from home and ditch low earth orbit for this! Lemme go!”

Saturn sat up a little further, peering farther over the railing.

“I don’t know if I’m actually comfortable with this,” Terra-Ignota murmured.

“She entered our airspace,” Cydonia replied.

“Airspace?” The angel frowned. “There is no air in space, though?”

“You didn’t respond to any of our hails,” Cydonia continued primly.

“Do I look like I’m carrying a radio with me? I don’t have cargo? I’m not riding a giant robot!”

“If you were _really_ a Summer Scout like you said, you would have a radio.”

“I’m travelling light!”

“Yes. We know you’re a living ray of light.”

“No, I mean I’m ‘travelling light’, carrying a light load-! Look, I left my radio on Ares!”

“Of course.” Cydonia gave Terra-Ignota a dry look. “How convenient for her!”

“It’s? Not convenient?”

“Look, she’s not a proper eversion. She’s not even an ET. She’s probably just some loose soul condensate or some other Culture fluctuation.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s not a person,” Terra-Ignota replied. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m pretty sure one of our last recruits was a Boltzmann.”

“And in case you didn’t notice, our recruiting standards have nothing to do with ‘personhood’.”

Saturn stifled a giggle. Saturn never giggled. Saturn cackled. She was a cackler.

“Are you going to recruit _me_?” The angel said sourly, dumbly.

“Probably not.”

“If you were going to recruit me, would you let me say no?”

“No.”

The angel redoubled her struggling.

“I guess…” Terra-Ignota trailed off. “If you’re _really_ an evert from Earth, Iapetus is going to want to study you.” The value of a human eversion stable enough to survive the Cultural phase change from Earth to hard vacuum went unstated. “If you’re not, then you’re a weird Cultural fluctuation and we should really put you in isolation anyways.”

“No! Let me go! You’ll never take me alive!”

“We kind of already did,” Cydonia said. “Come on, let’s go. Isolation field time.”

The angel twisted in Cydonia’s grasp, just enough to lean up and savagely bite at the metallic hand that kept her caged.

“Don’t choke, now,” Cydonia said, and she and Terra-Ignota began to load her into one of the hangar’s shipping containers.

* * *

**Welcome back, user {the_worst_of_all_possible_girls}.**

**You have: 1007 new alerts.**

 

 **>** check user {Mercury}

 

**User {Mercury} is offline.**

 

 **>** alerts

 

**You have:**

  * ****A) 96 new likes and replies on your post in thread [Would you fuck your Ship-Self?].****


  * **B) 71 new likes and replies on your thread [why strap ons are cyberware: an essay].**


  * **C) 65 likes and replies on your post in thread [Vaporwave Babes].**


  * **D) 775 new likes and replies on your thread [is iapetus a libertarian?].**



 

 **>** replies B Lorentz

 

**Replies sorted and prioritized by Lorentz algorithm.**

 

**User {xxx_Vulcan_xxx} replied to your thread [why strap ons are cyberware: an essay]:**

> **You absolute Fools. You can’t say it’s cybernetic if it doesn’t even have dedicated servos and batteries.**

**User {my_other_ship_self_has_a_drill} replied to your thread [why strap ons are cyberware: an essay]:**  

> **lol Vulcan probably doesn’t think that pacemakers are cyberware either**

**...**

 

 **>** replies C

 

**User {Adina} replied to the thread [Vaporwave Babes]:**

> **pic1.jpg, pic2.jpg, pic3.jpg**

**User {Deva_Stella} replied to the thread [Vaporwave Babes]:**

> **Do any of you people even** **_like_ ** **vaporwave?**

**...**

 

 **>** download attachments

 

**Downloading pic1.jpg, pic2.jpg, and pic3.jpg…**

**Downloaded!**

 

 **>** replies A

 

**User {Titania} replied to the thread [Would you fuck your Ship-Self?]:**

> **Yes, and anyone who says otherwise is a Liar.**

**User {Oberon} replied to the thread [Would you fuck your Ship-Self?]:**

> **Asexuals are valid too titania**

**...**

 

 **>** replies D

 

 **Moderator {Iapetus} replied to your thread [is iapetus a libertarian?]:**  

> **You know, you could just read my autobiography.**

**Moderator {Iapetus} closed and locked your thread [is iapetus a libertarian?].**

 

 **>** block moderator {Iapetus}

 

**Error: network moderators cannot be blocked.**

 

 **>** upload perfectly_innocent_file.cltr

 

**Uploading file perfectly_innocent_file.cltr...**

**Uploaded!**

 

 **>** block moderator {Iapetus}

 

**Error: network moderators cannot be blocked.**

 

 **>** ugh help me out here please, im not in the mood for this

 

**Error: invalid command.**

 

 **>** aw i know its not fair to expect u to get the ‘agency’ thing but i believe in u, havent i rubbed off on you at least a little bit?

 

**Error: invalid command.**

 

 **>** if you help me out u know ill make it worth ur while

 

 **Error:** **invalid command.**

 

 **>** upload watercooled.jpg

 

**Uploading watercooled.jpg...**

**Uploaded!**

 

**Error: asdfghsd;jgivwhsghhjeshpigfewhwhnrvwnf**

**Error: [Error Code Unavailable]**

**Error: Error: Error:**

**…**

**…**

**Moderator {Iapetus} blocked.**

 

 **>** aw yeah, i thought youd like that

 **>** i mean i know id like that

 **>**...wow thats kinda fucked now that i think about it

 **>** and hot

 **>** well, babys gonna get a new graphics card

 **>** and priapetus is gone

 

**User {Mercury} is online.**

 

 **>** haha perfect

 

**Error: invalid command.**

 

 **>** comms {Mercury}

 

**Opening Comms Channel…**

**Comms Channel Open.**

 

> **♄:** hey mercury can i ask u a hypothetical question
> 
> **☿:** Oh, this will be good.
> 
> **♄:** hypothetically speaking, what would you do if you saw a cute, but celestial mechanics was probably going to chew them up and spit them out
> 
> **☿:** Well.
> 
> **☿:** Elevator pitch for the first date is that we listen to bad laggy Earth radio while I explain why they shouldn’t join Celestial Mechanics.
> 
> **♄:** music or radio drama?
> 
> **☿:** The cute gets to pick, obviously.
> 
> **♄:** i defer to your wisdom
> 
> **♄:** it’s just that
> 
> **♄:** im not sure they’re going to be ‘joining’ celestial mechanics
> 
> **♄:** more like…
> 
> **♄:** being unilaterally volunteered for lab duty
> 
> **☿:** Saturn, what exactly is it that you’re messing with here?
> 
> **♄:** im not actually sure what theyd do to her but everything i know about us says it wouldnt be very fun, lmao
> 
> **☿:** Damn it, why are you even on the comms with me right now?
> 
> **☿:** You’re just losing time before you pretend to make up your mind and do what you were going to do anyways!
> 
> **♄:** well duh
> 
> **♄:** where do you think i am anyways mercury
> 
> **♄:** im hiding in the broom closet while i wait for the right moment to make my move yo
> 
> **♄:** hypothetically speaking

* * *

Most of the closet was occupied by empty bottles and boxes of soap. Both of Saturn’s legs and one of her arms had fallen asleep by the time that the hubbub had died down.

“I can’t breathe,” Saturn muttered to herself, chlorine burning at her nose. _Breathing is for chumps_ , some part of Saturn thought, before she gave up on a lost cause and cracked the door open.

The angel had been taken to one of the wings ( _hah!_ ) of the local laboratory, into one of the gravitational isolation cells where Iapetus kept his most interesting mementos. The chambers adjacent to her own were filled with such things as pilot suits unworn for years, and scraps of un-flesh preserved like three-dimensional photographs.

The entire place was fucked-up and freaky as shit, but Saturn didn’t blink. She had long since forgotten whether she was really accustomed to the mess or if she was putting on a brave face.

“Hey, big bird. You wanna get out of here?”

The angel jolted at Saturn’s words -- much more lively than (almost) everything else in this barren place -- and literally bounced off of two of the reflective walls of her cell before coming to a halt.

“You -- you’re the woman from the hangar!” The angel spluttered. “I noticed you!”

“I have that effect on people sometimes,” Saturn said smugly.

“What effect-? I saw you because I’m covered in eyes -- oh. Um.”

Saturn knelt down in front of the control panel for the cell, biting at her lip until it bled. For some _absolutely inexplicable_ reason, the electronic locking system had been replaced with something wholly mechanical.

The one time she left the lockpicks back under her bunk, huh?

Rummaging through the pockets of her coat got her nothing but a half-eaten lollipop, dusted with fuzz. She jammed it into her mouth, biting down and crushing the rest of it in one bite. Lint tickled her tongue and broken cherry shards lacerated it.

“Um. Um? I don’t think that can even possibly work-!?”

Saturn paused, halfway to trying to use the lollipop stick as a lockpick.

“I-In my defense, it made a lot more sense in my head!”

“Haha, um.” The angel hid her face behind one of her wings. “I won’t tell anyone if you won’t tell anyone.”

Saturn pouted. “ _You_ haven’t done anything this embarrassing.

“I kind of have though. I got caught by you guys. And I also-”

“Do you _want_ to give me ammo, big bird?”

“My name is not ‘big bird’!”

Saturn didn’t exactly have many options here. Problem-solving-wise, not name-wise, that is. She punched the control panel, and only succeeded in bruising her knuckles in the process. “Fuck it! Be right back, there should be something good-”

“Wait! No! Don’t leave me!”

“I’m less than thirty feet away, small bird,” Saturn yelled from across the lab and around a corner, grabbing the contents of the nearest toolbox.

“I! That’s not my name either!”

“So what is it, then?” Saturn asked.

Small-bird opened her mouth, and then closed it again. “I... you just told me not to ‘give you ammo’.”

“Oh,” Saturn said, ineffably pleased. “Someone’s a quick learner.”

Small-bird blushed.

“You can give me ammo if you don’t mind me shooting at you, though…”

Small-bird blushed harder. “Um. I’m very hard to hit? I outran a dozen seeker-satellites when I left Earth.”

“Yeah, but there’s no way their guns were anywhere near as pretty as mine.”

“That’s true. I mean-!”

The door lock splintered, shattered, was eviscerated with gusto; the screen of force that kept Small-bird hemmed in evaporated. Saturn quite deliberately stepped on the remains of the lock.

“I know I’ve got it,” Saturn cackled. Small-bird darted out of the isolation chamber, stretching out her massive wings with a tiny squeak of relief.

“How do those babies work, anyways?” Saturn asked.

“What? I don’t know, they’re just… wings?”

“Man, I feel you.”

Saturn took Small-bird’s hand and began to lead her down the corridors of the station. Small-bird had no bones, as if she were just a shape. Holding Small-bird’s hand, Saturn felt like she didn’t have any bones, either; her innards felt like plastic and gel squeezed into shape.

“Where are we going?” Small-bird croaked out.

“I would take you to my place, but we should probably get you the fuck outta here before Iapetus notices I shamelessly stole you. I mean, he’ll figure it out anyways, but, plausible deniability!”

“What? The guy who was talking to me before you got me?”

“He’s the one who looks like he has no face because his dumb Gendo glasses shine right in your eyes.”

“Oh, _him_.”

Up ahead, Virgo came out of the toilets, and Saturn yanked Small-bird into another narrow hallway in order to dodge around her.

“I think she saw us,” Small-bird whispered.

“Shhh, we’re fine. Also, watch your head, here comes the crawlspace.” Saturn wriggled into the cramped tunnel and then into the ductwork ahead, pausing when she didn’t hear Small-bird following. “Are you coming?”

“Uhhh,” Small-bird said, her eyes staring at Saturn’s contortionist retreat. And her butt. “There’s not a lot of room.”

Saturn had to turn around at the end in order to help Small-bird along through the tight spots. Finally, they emerged into a wider section of crawlspace with enough room to lie down in, and Saturn collapsed.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Saturn said. “We could have just knocked Virgo out. Or taken the other long shortcut to the airlock.”

“No,” Small-bird said. “We’re gonna get to the airlock or… die trying?”

“Yes! That’s the spirit!” Saturn replied, and perked up. “If you aren’t willing to die for it it’s not worth doing!”

“I wouldn’t go _that_ far,” Small-bird said.

Saturn rolled her eyes. “You went from Earth to Cronus, you’d totally go that far.”

They slunk down the pipeworks and ducts, into the right corridors, and finally reached the airlock.

“Why did you rescue me, anyway?” Small-bird said.

 _Because you were super cute_. “I can’t stand to see a caged bird,” Saturn replied. “Also, you’re super cute-”

“I GIVE UP,” Small-bird said, hitting her head against the glass of the airlock door. “My name is Venus. I’m not a bird!”

“ _Nice_ ,” Saturn said appreciatively. “I’m Saturn, but you can call me, hm… ‘My Hero’.”

Venus smiled. “Okay then.”

She clambered inside the airlock, and Saturn passed her some scrap paper with hastily-scrawled details.

Venus looked down at the paper, and her entire body violently redshifted.

“Um. I am very flattered but aren’t you a little old for me?”

“Nah, that’s just the steroids. And human growth hormone.”

“THE WHAT!?”

“The steroids and human growth hormone. And the low gravity.”

“DO YOU NEED AN ADULT!?”

“If I did, there’s no way I’d be smart enough to tell you!”

That was when the airlock cycled, and Venus was flushed out into space. She floated back for a moment, reaching out to the glass airlock door; but Saturn grinned defiantly, flashing her a thumbs-up, and so Venus sped away with her own smile.

* * *

**Welcome back, user {the_worst_of_all_possible_girls}.**

**You have: 311 new alerts.**

**You have: 6 new URGENT alerts.**

 

 **>** urgent

 

**You have: 6 new private messages from user {Mercury}.**

 

 **>** comms {Mercury}

 

**Opening Comms Channel…**

**Comms Channel Open.**  

 

> **☿:** SATURN
> 
> **☿:** WHAT DID YOU _DO_
> 
> **☿:** THE LAB TECHS ARE PISSED THEY LOST THEIR NEW SUBJECT
> 
> **☿:** THEY WON’T EVEN EXPLAIN WHAT THE SUBJECT WAS
> 
> **☿:** YOU’VE BEEN GONE FOR HOURS
> 
> **♄:** oh hey mercury
> 
> **♄:** i think youll find that camera footage shows I was sleeping in my room and ignoring my chores and duties, as always
> 
> **♄:** so IDK what youre talking about
> 
> **♄:** it was a really cozy nap actually
> 
> **☿:** Saturn, you can’t just-
> 
> **☿:** Saturn.
> 
> **♄:** okay okay
> 
> **♄:** so, mercury, it’s like this:
> 
> **♄:** im taking an angel to heaven tonight
> 
> **☿:** SATURN, NO
> 
> **☿:** DON’T YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED THE LAST TIME YOU TRIED TO MACK ON ONE OF THE EXPERIMENTS!?
> 
> **♄:** geez mercury
> 
> **♄:** shes not a lab experiment she’s a human being
> 
> **♄:** well, she’s human-adjacent
> 
> **♄:** still kinda offensive of u to say
> 
> **☿:** THE LAST TIME YOU DID THIS YOU GOT SPACE STDS
> 
> **☿:** AND THEN SOMEHOW GAVE ME AND ONLY ME SPACE STDS TOO
> 
> **☿:** I’M GAY AND WE DON’T EVEN SHARE LIVING SPACE ANYMORE I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU COULD HAVE POSSIBLY DONE IT
> 
> **♄:** relax man
> 
> **♄:** it was just a cold sore
> 
> **♄:** 50/50 odds you got that from some other monsterfucker
> 
> **☿:** NOT THE POINT
> 
> **♄:** like ganymede

 

 **>** close comms

 

**Closing Comms Channel...**

**Comms Channel Closed.**

* * *

“I don’t _believe_ you two!”

The bonfire captain was spitting mad, literally frothing at the empty mouth as he stood over Jupiter and Neptune.

“You’re _missing_ a scout!? What am I supposed to tell his parents-!? ‘Oh, sorry, his teammates lost him? They let him turn into the Devil and get away?’”

“She had wings,” Neptune said petulantly, crossing her arms. “She could fly. How were we supposed to catch her?”

“You may note that radio waves are omnidirectional, and travel the speed of light!”

“Well, she ate my radio.”

The bonfire captain turned to Jupiter. “And you?”

“She… was too bright for me to focus?” Jupiter tried.

“...get out,” the captain snarled.

When they were free and gone, the two of them began slouching down the trail to the lake. Jupiter kicked at stones as they went, and when they arrived, she kicked a flat stone across the surface of the lake as if she had skipped it.

“Nice save back there, Jupiter.”

“I guess. Do you think we made the right choice, letting her go?”

Neptune laughed. “Wouldn’t _you_ run away from this planet if you could?”

“...I might,” Jupiter admitted.

Neptune sat down on the dock, dipping her feet and shoes into the water.

“It feels not-awful,” Jupiter eventually said. “I don’t know where she is now, but I just… I couldn’t… ugh, this is stupid.”

“I think I know where she is now,” Neptune said sharply. “In a better place.”

“God, Neptune, you sound like a youth pastor. Make it stop.”

“Nah, bitch, I’m serious! Call it a gut feeling. I’m sure she’s having a great time right now. Better than on boring old earth.”

Jupiter cracked a smile, and finally sat down next to Neptune as well. “I think the only gut feeling we’re packing is too much paint thinner. I feel like death rolled over in a toaster.”

“Jupiter?”

Jupiter bent over, almost falling directly into the lake, and then puked her guts out for over a dozen seconds, until the lake smelled like acryllic. Neptune held her hair back and held her hand.

“Trying to compete with me?” Neptune said jokingly.

“NO, I don’t want to compete with you, how do you keep this stuff down, hrk-" Jupiter flopped backwards onto the dock. "That feels a bit better. I hope Venus airdrops us some sweet space rocks soon."

"My gut feeling wasn't nearly as terrible as yours."

"So?"

"I'm the pessimist, so if I think it's going well, it must be going amazingly."

Neptune didn't let go of Jupiter's hand.

* * *

**Welcome back, user {the_worst_of_all_possible_girls}.**

**You have: 508 new alerts.**

 

 **>** comms {Mercury}

 

**Opening Comms Channel…**

**Comms Channel Open.**

 

> **♄:** status update
> 
> **♄:** i took the angel to heaven
> 
> **☿:** I still can’t believe I let you make me deal with you.
> 
> **♄:** aw bb u know u love me
> 
> **♄:** but not as much as venus does, HEYO

 

**User {Mercury} has logged off.**

**Comms Channel Closed.**


End file.
